Growler Kratky Garden

[maskedsonnet]

I'm too excited to keep it to myself until the seeds get here!!! I'm going to make a Growler Kratky Garden, partly experiments inspired by ERR0R1755's root vegetable experiments and partly because I want to make enough lettuce to never eat WalMart lettuce again! Here's what's coming:

Saxa 2 Radish, picked because of the advertised 18-day maturity

Parisienne Carrots, picked because they're globe-shaped like the radish and I think that'd be easier to grow Kratky-style than a longer carrot

American Purple Top Rutabaga, because I love them and want them year-round so would love a way to grow them indoors. The ones from WalMart taste weird :/

Tokinashi Turnip, because it's pretty lol

Little Gem Lettuce, Tennis Ball Lettuce, and Tom Thumb Lettuce because I want to try a few smallish styles to find what I like best

More to come when I get the seeds and set up the garden!!

[Shawn]

Exciting .. I will be following!

[lynnee]

No more retail lettuce is such a worthy goal! It's going to be fun to watch your project.

[Shawn]

We need a "Lab" section for ERR0R1755 and now you LOL....

[Sher]

What a fantastic project, maskedsonnet!  I will love watching this one develop!

[maskedsonnet]

My seeds finally arrived!!! This is going to be a big project - I pulled down all my growlers for this! I only saved 2 for myself, for when I want something from one of the breweries I did one each of the seeds I ordered and had 5 bottles left, so also planted one each of parsley, cilantro, thyme, oregano, and basil!

Added 3 mL nutrients per 64oz bottle:

And the free seed I got from Baker's Creek was the wasabi radish, something I've wanted to try since seeing ERR0R1755 grow it! It'll replace whatever I harvest first out of these.

[Shawn]

That is a lot of packets and looking forward to following!

[campingcorgis]

Up here, one gets a discount of some sort, if the growler you bring in is one marked with their brand.  So, hope you saved the best one!  

This is a huge project and will be fun to watch!

[maskedsonnet]

I wish we got a discount, that’d be neat! But as far as I know none of the breweries here give a discount for using their glass instead of someone else’s. The one I go to the most is just happy when you hand them a clean bottle (I always do), because apparently they’ve had problems with people bringing them bottles that they never cleaned after emptying out. And I said “yuck!!!” When the bartender told me that.
So I saved the clear one because I didn’t want to deal with algae growing in it and the one with my favorite logo

[maskedsonnet]

Two of the 3 lettuce pods are up! No signs that I could see from the herbs yet, but they're in the back row and the way I have the lights set up would have made it hard to look down inside them. Also seeing life from the turnip, rutabaga, and radish!

[Sher]

That is a fun garden!!! So exciting to follow!

[Shawn]

The excitement begins

[maskedsonnet]

Nearly everything is up! Only ones not sprouted yet are the parsley and cilantro:

(In love with the shape of the rutabaga's leaves, I think they're adorable )

[Shawn]

I bet they pop up soon

[maskedsonnet]

Everything is officially up!! The cilantro is still small enough that I couldn't get a good photo, but it's in there

The lettuces:



Not a great shot of the Rutabaga, but soon I think it'll be time to try lifting it a bit out of the cage to give it room to bulb



The radish I almost fooled around and let get away from me!! But I did manage to shove the bulb up out of the cage and pull away the pod from the bulb so it could grow properly. Before this photo the bulb was down inside of the bottle neck!! 



The others!! The turnip is still small enough you can't really see in the photo, but its bulb it starting to form too and I didn't lose track of that one, so it's sitting on top of the pod where it needs to be. The carrot leaves look thin to me but I've never grown a carrot before so no idea if it's normal or if I should be worried. 



Overall I'm very pleased with how these bottles are coming along!!

[Sher]

I am pleased with how they are doing, too. Can't wait to see how the rutabaga does!

[lynnee]

I'm so impressed that you're growing all of these veggies in Kratkys, maskedsonnet! Your photos are a treat!

I'm envious of your beautiful radish! Would you consider sharing your technique for getting the bulb plants to stay up above the pods once you lift them?

[maskedsonnet]

With the rutabaga I’m probably going to have to prop it up with something, like toothpicks, because it hasn’t even tried forming a bulb yet, I think it might need some more space. The turnip was a nice round little nub that sat on top of the pod edge (not the basket edge) with just some careful positioning. I actually didn’t so much lift the turnip out as tear away the pod just around the bulb, because when I tried pulling it was pretty firmly rooted and I didn’t want to hurt anything. As the turnip (and rutabaga down the line) gets bigger I’ll probably use something to prop it up on top of the grow basket so it doesn’t get stuck in there. The radish, now that the top of the pod has been torn away from it, seems perfectly happy to sit on top of what’s left without any help, but I imagine if I hadn’t lost track of it I’d have had to support it somehow. I’ll add details on what supports I end up using on the others as the grow progresses

[lynnee]

Thanks, maskedsonnet!

With my new radish garden, I put a CZ Garden clay pebble in the bottom of each pod to hold the sponge up higher. Whether that will do any good remains to be seen.

[maskedsonnet]

The parsley pod dried out, so may restart that soon. The rest are looking good!

Cilantro

Thyme

The turnip, which got too large inside while I was gone. I had to cut the cage in order to push the bulb out.

Radish is looking good, rutabaga hasn't started to bulb yet but the roots are getting huge

Oregano and basil

Lettuce is mostly in good shape, the one on the far left is drooping a bit because the water ran a little low

Carrot